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Sentencing set in Athens infant murder case

A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for next week for an Athens woman convicted on Wednesday of stabbing her son to death soon after giving birth in November 2012. Cassandra Elyse Norwood, 23, faces a possible maximum sentence of life in prison.

She was convicted by a Clarke County Superior Court jury that needed less than an hour to find Norwood guilty of malice murder and other charges. Judge H. Patrick Haggard scheduled a sentencing hearing for 1:30 p.m. May 28.

Authorities said Norwood killed the newborn by “slicing” its throat and stabbing it in the abdomen at her home on Great Oak Drive, where she lived with her parents.

It was the end to a pregnancy the woman concealed from her family, they said. Norwood’s defense was she accidentally killed the baby while attempting to cut the umbilical cord. A medical examiner determined any of a number of the wounds the newborn suffered could have been fatal, including a puncture of the spine.